This is five minutes prior to mashing out. It has been at around 155°F for 55 minutes:

Here's the wort with some fuggles hops added, on its way to boiling (which it did for an hour):

This is where I forgot to take a picture. After the boild was complete, I added just shy of 3/4 cup maple syrup to the wort, stirred it in, and then set the boil pot into an ice bath (I actually used snow since still have plenty of it) to get the wort down to 70°F quickly so I could transfer it to the fermenter and add yeast.

And, finally, here it is in the fermenter after I added the yeast and shook it violently to activate it. The attached tube leads to a jar of sanitizer where the gas can escape safely without letting germies into the beer. (In a couple days, I'll switch it for an airlock.)

I tasted the little bit of wort that remained in the boil pot. Not knowing anything about what unfermented porters should taste like, I quite liked it.

_________________________
"I wish I had documented more…" said nobody on their death bed, ever.

It has been my experience that the idea of using maple syrup (or honey, or any other brewing sugar) always is more exciting than the outcome.

I have never read this anywhere, but it also seems like those beers require a month or so MORE in the bottle to mellow into a drinkable state. Therefore, considering the effort involved and the fact that you made a small batch, I would strongly urge you to be patient before cracking one open. It will be difficult to resist, but I would wait 3 mos. before sampling.

Thanks for the tip. I want my first time out to be rewarding so I'll leave it in bottles longer. I've already got the grain for an IPA ready so I know I have at least one more homebrew in my future, regardless.

_________________________
"I wish I had documented more…" said nobody on their death bed, ever.

It's kind of counter-intuitive. I don't know if Maple Syrup is similar to honey in this regard, but honey typically ferments out COMPLETELY leaving you with no residual sugar and a light, dry beverage. It's still kind of a mystery to me how people manage to make sweet mead. Perhaps they use a yeast that conks out at a relatively low alcohol point.

Edit: I searched the web after posting this and it looks like there is no definitive answer. There are a lot of different meads, that taste like white wine to beer to anything in-between depending on how you make it.

Yes, Ken. It's not so much that yeast has a limit - the alcohol tolerance of yeast strains varies considerably. So, it's not really that they can't turn more sugar into alcohol, they're just too hammered to do it any more.

The one mead I made, New Year's Eve '97 or '98, I used a dried champagne yeast. Couldn't decide which style to make so I made them all - some berries, some barley, some cinnamon, some raw apple cider, whole bunch of stuff. The result was definitely drinkable, but not the most popular dram on my shelf.